Taganga Life

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When you come down the hill into Taganga in the highly cramped and small colectivo, the view over the bay is indeed a beautiful one. A small fishing village situated between large imposing hills near the big and not too pleasant city of Santa Marta whose only real claim to fame that we could fathom is that it boasts the legendary Carlos Valderama as its mayor.

Taganga on first appearance seems pleasant enough, but certainly has its drawbacks. The beach for example is gritty and normally covered in some kind of litter and occasionally dog muck, there are too many tourists for such a small town and the wind can reach up to levels that must be bordering on a hurricane, and that is all ok as long as there isn´t an electricity failure which there is on almost a bi-daily basis. But you know what none of that stuff matters because frankly Taganga rocks!!!! A place a kin to the Bermuda Triangle where once you enter it seems almost impossible to leave, and it certainly takes all the will power you can muster to actually get on a bus out. A place with so much charm and where everybody will know your name eventually makes it feel like Colombia´s very own Cheers bar.

Taganga is very closely situated to all sorts of excellent places that its charm and raison d´étre is more obvious once you have been there a little while. La Ciudad Perdida is a trip not for the faint hearted (or those who enjoy an actual functioning toilet) and Parque Tayrona is surely amazing in the sunshine, although it´s situated on the border of a very bizzare micro-climate that doesn´t know whether it is jungle or Carribean, and neither did we.

These amazing attractions are not all that make up Taganga life however. There are an array of funny and interesting characters who make this place a must see. There is Rolando and his son Pipé who can be seen and heard on the beach in the day and in the restaurants of an evening delivering their particular blend of classic Latin guitar tunes mixed with some quite frankly excellent rapping, so much so we felt compelled to buy their CD. As one person we met exclaimed with genuine surprise ´they´re actually pretty tight´ and he was right they were.

As well as this veritable feast of music there is the homemade fruit juices that can be bought almost anywhere and of which Julia found herself continually returning cash in hand like some crazed tropical fruit junkie, sweating viciously if she couldn´t get her fix. Also there is some fantastic food to be eaten here, you can get some fresh fish caught that day from one of the numerous beach side restaurants or as we did for lunch on more than one occasion splash out for some home comforts and have one of Marie´s baguettes ( using actual baguettes, I mean come on.....).

All this and we haven´t even mentioned the famous Wednesday nights. Who would have thought that a Wednesday could or would be the focus of a week, but sure enough in Taganga this is possible. Every Wednesday without fail virtually the entire town head out for a night of debauchery in the only dancing venue in the town the ubiqiutous ´El Garaje´, and party hard until the wee hours after which if you are feeling particularly brave you can continue on to the Bay View hostel where the party starts at 3 am and carries on until breakfast time, a good place to go but not necessarily a place to stay.

All in all it was extremely hard to get out of Taganga but together with our new travelling friend John we all pulled together and using some techniques that you could probably find on ´Oprah´ dragged ourselves away and on to Medellin, the home of one of the most famous Colombians ever........

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Comments

[nina]

Rolando´s music
We also have a signed CD from Rolando and we wait with eager anticipation to play it when we get home. Rolando took a particular shine to Steve - being from the home of The Beatles. And El Garaje...what can I say other than our xmas eve/xmas morning was spent there before the fateful loss of keys.